Chapter Twenty-Five

Christmas comes and goes. Cold weather, long and dark nights, egg nog and an anemic looking Christmas tree I force Marcy into helping me put up so there is at least something in the house that represents the festive season. Mom is blasé on her good days, completely disinterested on her bad ones.

I’ve never really been too much of a fan of Christmas anyway, but this year it’s absolutely torturous. The temperatures drop low enough for there to be snow, but what we get instead is a kind of mush that mixes with the mud at the edges of the pathways and creates a mess of gritty disgustingness that turns my bad enough mood up at the edges into something I barely recognize. I’m anxious about the changes that are about to be forced on this family, and sad that I can only see Donkey in their two dimensional state, from a distance so far away it’s as if we’re in completely different worlds.

Mom’s mood doesn’t help either, which for the last month or so has been stable but low, accepting but not able to advance. It’s frustrating to see such little emotion coming from her, and I know I shouldn’t blame her for what has essentially been thrust upon her, but I can’t help but feel like she’s losing any kind of battle she could mount, if she gives up on life completely. As Dad, Janice and Brian have all now proven, not to mention countless others before her, life doesn’t end just because a relationship does.

Dad and Janice, by contrast, are upbeat and sickeningly enthusiastic. They go all out with Christmas decorations, dolling up their apartment like the front window of a department store, buy a huge tree that barely fits into the corner of the living room that spreads its upper branches out across the ceiling, and buy stacks of unnecessary presents for each other just because first Christmas together.

I spend what should be a pleasant Christmas eve with them, but something about the grandiosity of the display seems showy and fake to me, and instead of allowing myself to relax, I can’t help but feel like none of this is that real. It’s odd, because Dad has never been a fan of Christmas either, certainly not this style of celebrating it, so seeing him like this seems to serve only to create more distance between us. I wonder if what I’ve experienced growing up never was the way my father was and now, finally that he’s found someone to support and accept him, is he able to fully be himself. The thought saddens me and I try not to dwell on it too much, especially because they’ve gone to huge efforts to make me feel welcome, and besides all of that, Dad seems like he’s happy.

I don’t hear him complaining like he used to, he’s pleasant and complimentary to Janice, who in turn is patient and loving with him, and together they just seem like the picture perfect couple, desperately trying to make the most of what was probably years of lost time for the benefit of their maturing children.

I spend much of the rest of the time in between the specific days of celebration with Marcy or on my own writing sexy stories to send to the twins, or read to them when we finally find ourselves together again, and then see the new year in at a party she insists on dragging me to, even though all I want to do is curl up in bed and call the twins. It isn’t really my scene, but I go to be a good friend, and it ends up being the perfect distraction to the rest of the shit that’s going on in my world that I know will get way too real before I even have time to comprehend it.

We drink and then we dance and then we get hit on by a group of boys from the neighborhood who get all pissy when we turn them down, and then at about two am we decide to bail.

A little bit drunk and a lot maudlin, I decide it seems like the perfect time to tell Marcy about my plans to move. I’ve submitted a request and I’ve contacted LSU about a transfer, and right now I’m waiting to hear back.

I wasn’t going to tell her until I heard one way or the other, but with the new year starting and the fact that Christmas has been a hell of a depressing affair in general, keeping something so important from my best friend seems like the last thing I want to do right now. There have been so many lies and so much deception already surrounding the many relationships in my life, I really don’t want that to continue.

“Got any resolutions?” Marcy asks, as we walk down the middle of the street, holding onto one another against the cold, kicking the slush that rucks up against our boots.

“Get published”, I say. “Formalize my relationship with Donkey, get Mom on a dating program, you?”

Marcy puts a cigarette to her lips, lights it and blows a cloud of smoke out into the air in front of us.

“Give up smoking, join your mom on the dating scene, get a better job, you know, the usual. Get out of Madison maybe.”

I give her the side eye. “Yeah? I’ve heard Louisiana is nice at this time of year.”

“Less slush?”

“More po’boy.”

“I could get down with that. The men here aren’t real men”, Marcy says.

“No?” I ask.

“I think you’ve already claimed the best two that were on offer”, she adds.

“I got lucky”, I confess.

“So, how long have I got?” she guesses. “A month? Two? The summer?”

“That’s one thing I love about you, Marcy, you’re so perceptive.”

“Rum heightens my abilities.”

“I don’t doubt that”, I say.

We walk on for a bit, arm in arm.

“So?” she asks after a while.

“I don’t know”, I say. “I was going to tell you when I heard. Until then, it’s not much more than an idea. Plus with the wedding and Mom. Anyway, I’m sorry, I should have said.”

“That’s ok”, Marcy says. “I’ll join your mom on the porch, the two of us can drink rum and bitch about men.”

“You could always join me”, I suggest.

“And leave you with no-one to keep you sane when you came back to visit your Mom? Please.”

“Donkey thinks I should bring her with me, introduce her to some of the single dad’s of the players on their team”, I say.

Marcy raises her eyebrows. “Keep talking about players and you might be able to convince me.”

“It won’t be for a while”, I say. “There’s tons of shit to sort out here first. The wedding, Mom, plus we’ve got to come clean at some point, which is going to be a barrel of laughs, and I need to work out how I’m going to afford it.”

“Just bunk with the boys on campus”, Marcy says.

“I don’t think that would work, especially if they knew we were step-siblings”, I say.

“I still can’t believe it.”

“You’re not the only one. Remember last new year’s up on Monument Hill? When you were talking about going to college, the Twins were nothing more than a fixation and everything seemed to be normal?”

“Yes I do”, Marcy says. “That college idea didn’t last too long. That was right before I got that job at Seventh Heaven and I realized earning money was way more attractive than being in debt.”

“That whole time seems like a completely different world away”, I say wistfully.

I feel a snowflake fall against my face and look up to the sky. Another one falls, and then another after that. I open my mouth and let the frosty wetness melt against my tongue.

“Any regrets?” Marcy asks me.

“No”, I say.

“None?” she insists.

“Maybe the prom”, I admit. “The after party too. Getting wasted and making a fool of myself. I thought that would bury me. I thought I’d fucked up with Donkey then too. Losing my notebook, that wasn’t cool.”

“Puking on the lawn outside their house?” she asks.

“That too.”

“Well, whatever you did, it worked.”

The snow is falling more heavily now, thick enough to make our hair wet and white.

“You?” I ask.

“Regrets?” Marcy says. “Men in general, I suppose.”

“Yeah, you’ve had your fair share of bad ones”, I say.

“You’ve got to kiss a lot of frogs”, Marcy says. “Or just the right two. Maybe I’m just unlucky in love.”

“Or I’m extremely lucky”, I suggest.

“That too.”

We walk on for a bit, the tops of the cars at the edges of us white with fresh snow. It hasn’t snowed like this all season and seeing it here now makes me disproportionately happy. Perhaps it’s the whole scene that’s doing it, though. Walking along, arm in arm with my best friend in the whole world, while 2017 ushers its way in on a fresh blanket of white. You can’t get much purer than that I suppose.

“You know, it doesn’t snow like this in Baton Rouge”, Marcy says.

“I didn’t think it snowed like this in Madison either”, I say.

I rest my head on her shoulder for a moment. “I won’t be going immediately, you know, plus I’ll be back often, and you can always come and visit”, I add.

“That’s how the end of a friendship begins”, Marcy says. “Little by little we’ll drift apart.”

“Not if we don’t let ourselves”, I say.

“It’s alright, the snow is making me sad”, Marcy admits.

“I thought you never got sad”, I say.

“I never had to deal with growing up before”, she says.

“Nor me”, I say. “It’s way harder than I thought.”

“At least you’re happy.”

“I am with Donkey”, I say, “but it’d be a hell of a lot easier if they weren’t about to become my stepbrothers.”

“Better than them being your actual brothers”, Marcy says, and it makes me laugh out loud.

“Never a truer word spoken. Hey”, I say, breaking away from her, the idea just coming to me. “You want a snowball fight?”

Marcy narrows her eyes at me, while I’m already testing the snow from a car roof for suitability.

“A snowball fight?” she asks, the question formed in such a way it suggests she’s saying instead, why the fuck did we not think of this before?

“I don’t know, Jenny, I’m not all that competitive”, she says, while edging her way towards a huge stack of snow on the hood of the closest car.

The snow isn’t brilliant, but I manage to make a decent enough ball anyway. I toss it between my gloved hands, waiting for Marcy to get ready.

“That’s okay”, I say. “You don’t need to be competitive, you just need to be good at throwing.”

“Or ducking”, she says, expertly avoiding the snowball I’ve thrown without warning, which explodes against the car window behind her. I giggle hard while I work quickly at gathering more snow only for a neatly packed bundle to explode painfully against my lower back.

“Ow!” I scream out, turning around to see Marcy laughing hard and already gathering more snow. “You’re going to pay for that.” I say, before taking a more strategic position and ducking behind one of the parked cars on my side of the street.

“You’re going to have to make me”, Marcy says, half a cigarette still pressed to her lips, the smoke curling towards the sky.

I bundle up two snowballs while another one of hers fizzing past my head to disappear into the darkness behind me.

“Fuck!” I hear Marcy shout, before I advance, balls blazing, to land both hard against her chest.

The snow explodes in a puff of white dust and I have just enough time to celebrate before Marcy gets back to gathering, giggling so hard she sounds like she’s never had as much fun.

To be honest, it’s been ages since I have either, and for a long while into the fading hours of the night, Marcy and I gather snow, hands getting numb where the thin gloves we’ve brought out aren’t enough to protect us, and launch it across the road into each other’s direction.

When the giggling eventually gets the before of us, or the snow runs so low we’re basically just showering each other with a handful of flakes, we wrestle and fall together, arm in arm into a slushy bank.

I stretch out and look up to the sky, while Marcy fishes for a cigarette and sticks it to her lips.

“Last one”, she says. “Guides’ honor.”

“You were never a guide”, I say.

“Then Marcy’s honor.”

From down here, through the last of the tumbling snow, the stars look even brighter than normal.

“You’ll come, won’t you?” I say. “To the world’s strangest wedding.”

“Will there be a free bar?” she asks.

“Yes, there’ll be a free bar”, I confirm.

“Then I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“Good. I’m going to need the support.”

We lie there in silence, each of us lost in our own thoughts, while the snow begins to thin out.

“Jenny?” Marcy asks after a while.

“Uh huh?”

“Is your back cold?”

“Yes”, I say, laughing. “Freezing.”

“Mine too. Home?” she suggests.

I nod. “Definitely”, I say, sitting up. “2016 can go fuck itself.”

I hold out my arm and help Marcy up. “Now that’s an attitude I can get along with”, Marcy says, pulling herself to her feet.

We walk the rest of the way home in silence, and despite everything that’s about to happen now seeming less around the corner and much more on the very same street, I feel positive. I feel like 2017 will be my year and honestly, I can’t wait for it to begin.